BitFenix Colossus Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX Chassis Review

Introduction BitFenix is one of the coolest names in the chassis industry. Sure they've been making great chassis' for many years, but a couple of years ago they shot to legendary status with the launch of their ever-popular BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX chassis. The Prodigy really sparked new life into the mini-ITX chassis market and since then we've seen a wave of impressive new cube style chassis from a wide range of manufacturers. BitFenix have launched several mini-ITX and Micro-ATX chassis based around the original Prodigy design over the last couple of years, as a quick recap, here are our reviews for each of them; BitFenix Prodigy mini-ITX BitFenix Prodigy M Micro-ATX BitFenix Phenom Micro-ATX BitFenix Phenom Mini-ITX They're all fairly similar products and many borrow components from each other, with only a few minor interior tweaks between each model; such as new exterior panels. The two chassis I have at my disposal today are no exception. There's been a few minor changes to the interior and of course we've got the new exterior panels that offer aesthetics similar to the original Colossus full-tower. At my disposal today I have not one, but two Colossus chassis, the mini-ITX and the Micro ATX variants. They're both almost identical from the exterior view, but they are very different chassis on the interior; so let's get right to it and see what each of these new chassis has to offer. Exterior First up we have the mini-ITX chassis, which features a 240mm clip-in dust filter/cover on the top panel; perfect for top mounted fans or radiators. The top of the chassis is capable of holding 2 x 120mm fans, or a 240mm radiator with the 5.25" tray removed. One of the more obvious features of the Colossus is the lightening bolt style decal that runs down the side panels and across the front of the chassis. This is a thick piece of plastic that has been mounted into the chassis and features internal LED lighting that can be set to red, green or blue. All the usual inputs and outputs are located on the right side of the chassis. Dual USB 3.0 is standard, but there is a USB 3.0 to 2.0 header adaptor included in the box for those with older motherboards. The front panel is finished with soft touch rubber, giving it a nice matte finish that contrasts nicely with the LED strip. The front panel door is packed with ventilation to allow airflow to the front fan intake. There's a filtered 5.25" drive bay cover and a filtered fan cover below that. Around the back you'll find a 120/140mm fan mount, a pair of ventilated expansion slots and a removable PSU mounting bracket. The base of the chassis has four large feet with soft rubber grips, a washable dust filter, four screw holes for mounting an extra 2.5" drive on interior of the chassis and finally six screws that allow you to fully remove the internal hard drive bays. Exterior The MicroATX model is virtually identical from the exterior view. The chassis is the same size, has the same side, top and front panels, it really does just look the same. For this reason, I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking, otherwise I'm just going to be repeating the previous page of this review. There are some differences of course, which you'll see on the last two images. This is where the two chassis begin to differ; the Micro-ATX chassis has a noticeably different layout on the interior. There are five expansion slots, a 120/140mm fan mount and a PSU cable pass through; the motherboard is mounted upside down in this chassis. On the base of the chassis you'll find a heat shield, this stops the PSU venting heat back into the chassis if you have bottom mounted storage drives; the PSU is mounted in the front of the chassis. Interior The Prodigy featured a pair of 2.5" drive mounts on the side panel interior, but they've been removed to prevent conflicts with the LED strips. The interior is very similar to the Prodigy chassis layout. There's a horizontal mini-ITX motherboard tray on the left with the PSU mounting zone below it. There's a cable routing cut-out here, as well as space on the right to pass cables into the storage section of the chassis. The top hard drive bay can be removed tool-free, while the lower drive bays, as well as the 5.25" drive bays can be unscrewed. Around the back you'll find a little extra space behind the hard drive bays for excess cables. There is also another cable routing hole to the right of the motherboard, and a large cut-out between the PSU and the hard drive bays. Behind the front panel you'll find a 120mm fan pre-installed, with room for a second 120mm fan or a single 140/180/200/230mm fan. Interior Behind the motherboard you'll find a little bit of space for cable routing, although it is limited. There's a vertical hard drive mount which supports 2.5" and 3.5" drives. It's held in place with four screws, which you'll need to remove to install the rest of your components. In the bottom front of the chassis is a PSU bracket. this can be removed via a thumb screw to make installing your PSU easier. Behind the front panel you'll notice the same front panel as the mini-ITX model, although it will be taken up by the PSU, so you won't be able to use those fan mounts like you can in the mini-ITX model. The top of the chassis does still have the dual 120mm fan mounts, but keep in mind that you'll likely not have space for fans with two graphics cards installed. With the hard drive bay removed you can see there is a good amount of space on the interior, and you're going to need every millimeter to cram a micro-ATX motherboard in here. There's a 120mm fan mounted as an exhaust in the base of the chassis and another in the back. Interestingly both the base and the back fans are setup as exhaust and there are none mounted as an intake. Complete System The mini-ITX build was nice and easy. Everything locked into place and the cable routing options made hooking everything up a straight forward job; the whole build took just over 30 minutes. The Sapphire R9 270X is a pretty big graphics card, so I obviously had to remove the upper hard drive bays to acommodate it. I've used a low profile cooler, but you can see there's plenty of room for something bigger. You could easily fit a 240mm radiator in the top, or a 120mm radiator in the back of the chassis. Airflow from the front mounted fan is pretty good, although personally I would move the bottom 120mm fan higher up. The extra cable routing around the motherboard is a welcome addition and helps keep things neat and tidy. Complete System The Micro-ATX build took an hour to put together, twice as long as the mini-ITX build. To put it bluntly, the Micro-ATX chassis is a complete pain in the butt to work with. However, despite it's annoying build process, the final product looks pretty god. There's a tiny bit of room behind the motherboard for cable routing, but there's also plenty of extra cable space at the side of the PSU which you can use to cram excess cables. The M12II Evo Seasonic PSU we've used is a little tall, especially once you factor in the modular cable connectors, as they cause a little conflict with the graphics card; the card is lifted up ever so slightly at the back. There's plenty of room here for a large CPU cooler and enough space to fit a small AIO water cooler if you wanted. If you need extra storage, you can remove the bottom fan and mount drives directly to the base of the chassis. There is just enough room here for a dual GPU setup, but there's very little space for the first card to pull extra airflow; I'd rather have two low RPM fans mounted in the top and stick with a single GPU for this reason. Out Sapphire R9 270X is a long graphics card, so I had to remove the 5.25" bracket from the front of the chassis to accommodate it. Final Thoughts Price At the time of writing the Colossus Mini-ITX and the Colossus Micro-ATX we're both available for under £70. This puts them along side similar models from BitFenix and they're both priced on par with rival offerings of a similar spec. I have seen a few deals available on each of these cases cropping up and if you shop around, you may even pick one up for around £50! Overview I started this review with mixed feelings, I love the original BitFenix Prodigy mini-ITX chassis, and while I think it's great that BitFenix are brining out new designs, I'm also a little bored of them. There's little new with the chassis' I reviewed today and while they do look great from an exterior point of view, there's much that could have been improved. First of all, I love the mini-ITX model. It is a joy to work with, has removable storage bays that are easy to work with, room for a long graphics card, water cooling and more. This is the same formula that worked well for the original prodigy and that holds true. The only downside I can see is that the new LED light strip on the side panels has meant the removal of two 2.5" hard drive mounts, which used to be on the side panel. Cable routing has been improved thanks to some revised cable routing cut-outs around the PSU area, which is certainly a welcome addition. The Micro-ATX edition on the other hand, feels too much like trying to make this chassis something it's not. The exterior panels are borrowed from the mini-ITX and the chassis keeps the same form factor, but it really does feel like it needs to be a little bit bigger in my opinion. I had conflicts between the PSU and the graphics card. I had conflicts with the PSU power extension cable and the power connector on the back of my PSU. Cable routing isn't ideal, the default fan configuration is counter intuitive and storage space is limited. If you absolutely need a chassis the same size as the mini-ITX and absolutely need room for a micro-ATX board, then sure, get this model. However, there are far better solutions on the market that do a much better job with the Micro-ATX form factor. So there we have it, a big thumbs up for the mini-ITX model, it's a great little case and it's very easy to work with. The Micro-ATX model is great, but it feels massively impractical to work with compared to its mini-ITX counterpart. Pros Great build quality throughout Nice aesthetics New LED light strip looks great Room for long graphics cards AIO water cooler support Improved cable routing near PSU Cons New LED lighting means the side panel SSD mounts are gone Micro-ATX model can be tricky to work with Panels re-used from older models, nothing innovative Thank you OverclockersUK for providing us with these samples.